Los Angeles, Dec 11 (IANS): Actress-director Jodie Foster says the reason she likes to make movies is because it helps her evolve as a person.

"Some directors love cranes and CGI and spectacle, but that is not why I make movies. I feel like I make movies because there are things I have to say in order to figure out who I am or my place in the world, or for me to evolve as a person. But until you get to the end of your movie, you don't always realise why you were obsessed with that particular thing," Foster told The Observer newspaper, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Her comment comes after Foster said that she found acting "cruel and hard".

"I don't think I would have been an actor had I not been thrown into it at the age of 3. It's just not my personality. Maybe that is what has made my work interesting. But it has been really cruel and hard to be an actor... It is hard for me to live with myself as the idea of celebrity," she said.

Foster says it makes her feel like she is in a reality TV show.

"So I think I've neurotically gone in the other direction. I was raised in the public eye, so you have two options, you guard ?(your privacy) or you let it be for sale," she added.

Foster took some time away from acting in 1980 to study English at Yale and she loved the experience because it made her feel normal.